Cutting a Dash was a popular BBC Radio 4 series about punctuation, hosted by Lynne Truss. It was the direct inspiration for Truss's bestselling book Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
It was a series of five fifteen-minute programmes, first broadcast in 2002:
- The Endangered Apostrophe: Is a misplaced apostrophe a catastrophe?
- Changing Gear, the Comma: "A little boomerang", the Ancient Greeks, legalese and the National Curriculum come under scrutiny.
- And Another Thing: Colons and Semicolons. George Bernard Shaw, Sir Compton Mackenzie and Fay Weldon debate the "limb" of punctuation.
- Listen to Me When I'm Writing: Jane Austen, inverted commas, and a man haunted by an exclamation mark.
- Punctuating the Future: Are the internet and e-mail influencing how we punctuate?
The series was re-broadcast on BBC 7, 8–12 January 2007, and again on 17–21 May 2010.
Read more about this topic: Lynne Truss